This invention relates to industrial and mission critical computers housed in a 1U chassis (1.75xe2x80x3 outer diameter), and in particular to a novel expansion of the PCI bus for a 1U backplane.
There currently exists a need for computers having such an extremely short profile. A computer having a 1U chassis conventionally has a vertical computer backplane only about 1.7 inches high. Conventionally there is a PICMG CPU card or a motherboard plugged horizontally into the vertical backplane leaving only room for one I/O connector, such as a PCI connector above it. So basically there is a very short backplane with two cards plugged horizontally into it with no room for an additional PCI connector or card. Moreover, the PCI card that is plugged parallel to the CPU card cannot be a full size card because current processors on the CPU card have a high profile due to a heat sink and fan.
There has been a long felt need to provide one or more PCI expansion slots for such a low profile chassis, slots which can accommodate an off-the-shelf sized PCI card.
Other advantages and attributes of this invention will be readily discernable upon a reading of the text hereinafter.